Latest Update to Special Meeting regarding the Administrator Search
Today, June 4, with a 7-4 vote, the Board of Commissioners, with no deliberation, voted to move forward with Double Hauls’s 5 “top scored” publicly unnamed candidates and effectively eliminated all other applicants.
There are several reasons why I am very disappointed and saddened by this decision.
First, our BOC neglected to heed Commissioner Rhodea’s legal and transparency concern as it relates to a recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling on the Open Meetings Act – please see attached article that I shared earlier today. https://micounties.org/…/Michigan-Counties-February…
Second, I strongly believe that the work done by the recruiting firm was leaned on too heavily and the Board gave up much of its power to carefully vet, research and openly discuss candidates.
Double Haul ranked the applicants into five color categories – “Top”, “Interesting”, “Middle”, “Bottom” and “Candidates cut prior to 19.” Double Haul conducted interviews with some of the applicants and provided a summary of notes they took.
Many of the notes provided were subjective vs objective in nature. Examples – “Polished.” “Comes across as a bit arrogant.” “Good personality.” Because they were not objective, this unelected consultant who solely conducted the first round of interviews, had the opportunity to sway members of the county commissioners one way or another.
From my perspective, the top five candidates were by far not all in the “top green” category. They were spread out through the “Interesting” and “Middle” group.
Looking Back- Last year, I spent quite a bit of time in reflection from my first year in office. And I shared with many that if I had an opportunity to do one thing over again during that time frame, it would be to change how we put a new administrator in place. If I could go back in time, I would have voted to have John Gibbs installed on an interim basis and then conducted a search for a full time administrator (to which he could also apply if he so chose). One of the main reasons for this is so that the public could weigh in on applicants. Because sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know.
Present – So where does that leave us?
Double Haul will be contacting all the candidates to let them know the outcome from today. Double Haul’s top 5 will be asked if they are ready for their names to be released and begin the next steps in the process which includes a public interview with a Citizen Committee on Wednesday, June 11 and then will move onto interviews with the full Board of Commissioners on Thursday, June 12.
I welcome the conversation with the candidates that will be continuing on in our search process and will continue to encourage our Board to pursue greater transparency and accountability to the people we serve here in Ottawa County.
